


The Lower You Fall

by kesdax



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: 25 Days of Voyager, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 08:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16950267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kesdax/pseuds/kesdax
Summary: A Klingon and a Borg... in a fight to the death.





	The Lower You Fall

**Author's Note:**

> S6E15 - Tsunkatse au. Written for 25 days of voyager on tumblr

With a groan, B'Elanna awakes.

Darkness and nothing and then… and then:

“Lieutenant.”

“Seven?”

And the world is bright. The world is pain.

*

There had been a shuttle, an away mission. Two days stuck alone with a drone and a headache and her temper constantly on the brink of cracking.

Supposed to be simple. Go there, collect the data, come back. The promise of shore leave. Plans with Tom and a few days of not having to worry about her engine room.

Now this.

A blaze of fire across the expanse of dark space. A shudder through the hull, so violent it vibrates her teeth. She bites her tongue and the system's go haywire. Seven sounds out a warning but it's too late, too late.

And then they are here.

*

“Where are we?” B'Elanna asks. Her ribs hurt, her head aches and she's sure she's missing a tooth. The urge to throw up is overwhelming and she wants nothing more than to wrap herself in the oblivion of sleep, forget she's a Starfleet officer, forget about survival. Just be. But she can't. Her instincts tell her to move and she grits her teeth against the pain, against the brightness of being alive.

“That is unclear,” is Seven's answer. There's a cut on her forehead, a bruise on her cheek all blue and purple like the gas clouds of a stellar nebula. The rest of Seven's face is pale in comparison and B'Elanna remembers the drone, fresh from a Borg cube, angry and fighting and lost from home.

“The shuttle was destroyed,” Seven continues. “I was unable to get a message to  _ Voyager.” _

So here they are, stuck in a dank cell, licking their wounds. Rescue far away. But they will come.  _ Voyager  _ will come.

She always does.

*

Hunger and exhaustion have made her irritable. She slaps the walls, kicks the floor, looking for weak spots, a way to escape. Seven watches and says nothing and B'Elanna feels her anger grow.

Why capture them, destroy their shuttle and lock them in a cell for hours and hours that bleed into days, days that stretch on and on with no end approaching the horizon? What is to be done with them, in the end? There are no answers, only questions.

And then Penk comes.

Something about the way his wiry strings of moustache, the way they hang there as he smirks at them, makes B'Elanna hate him instantly.

“A Borg drone,” he says, appraising Seven. “Interesting. And you?” He turns to B'Elanna. “So many redundant organs. What are you?”

“Pissed off,” says B'Elanna and swings her fist.

She hits Penk in the jaw. Nothing breaks and she's almost disappointed. There's so much fight in her, but Penk has not come alone. He's not that stupid.

Guards flood the cell. Two pull her away from Penk while a third brandishes a long metal pole. The end is rammed into her side, a flood of pain into every one of her cells and she's falling, falling and-

*

“Lieutenant Torres.”

B'Elanna groans. Opens her eyes, closes them. It's too bright and Seven is too Seven and everything  _ hurts. _

“Whaddya want?” B'Elanna mutters.

“We are being moved with the others.”

“What others?” But rough hands grab her by the arms, pulling her up, dragging her through corridors.

They exchange one cell for another. This one's bigger. Bunks line the walls, a big open space in the middle where two aliens spar. No, she realises as the guards throw her to the ground.  _ Prisoners. _ Prisoners sparring with each other.

B'Elanna blinks up at Seven in confusion, but it's Penk that brings her answers.

“Ladies, welcome to  Tsunkatse .”

“What the hell is that?” asks B'Elanna. Penk is flanked by two guards, each of them clutching one of those metal poles and they both bring them up to aim in B'Elanna's direction.

“The arena is always in need of new fighters,” says Penk. “I think you'll make a fine new addition.”

*

She wants to laugh. She is to fight first, of course. Penk dislikes her just as much as she hates him and the deepening bruise on his jaw, which he wears proudly like a medal of honour, stands out as a stark reminder of the fight that lives in B'Elanna's blood.

“You must resist,” says Seven a little later when they've both been fed and all their cuts and bruises healed with a dermal regenerator. It does nothing for the pain in her muscles from the pole shock and B'Elanna can barely stand. “You are injured. Fighting would be foolish.”

“You say that like I have a choice,” B'Elanna mutters, annoyed. She watches the other prisoners practice, their clumsy movements and inexperience and she knows she can best every one of them.

“Lieutenant-”

She knows what's coming, what Seven will suggest and B'Elanna's pride - B'Elanna's  _ honour _ \- will not allow it. Seven cannot take her place.

“I'm fine,” B'Elanna insists and gets ready to fight.

*

The guy is huge.

At least over seven feet tall. B'Elanna feels like a tribble in comparison. An impenetrable mass of flesh and bone, muscles thicker than a starship hull. He looks down at her with a snarl, clearly unimpressed by this new fighter he is forced to compete against.

He looks up at Penk in his viewbox overlooking the arena, unsure if this is for real or not, and while he is distracted by Penk's slight nod of approval, B'Elanna takes her shot.

She's a good fighter. Always has been. And a dirty fighter at that. She aims low, bringing her knee to the alien fighter’s groin - a safe bet when it comes to alien anatomy in this part of the universe; men always seem to have  _ something _ important down there.

Her opponent flinches, but it was like kneeing a metal plate of armour and she's sure she's done more damage to her knee than she has to him.

Not that she dares let that show.

She gets in a good few punches while he's still off guard, always aiming for the soft parts: beneath the ribs, the throat.

They dance around the arena and although B'Elanna is not adverse to hand to hand combat without a weapon, she longs for a Bat'leth. Her hands feel empty without one. Her arms tire quickly and she realises too late her opponent is playing with her, leading her in listless circles around the arena to tire her out.

This only fuels her anger.

She braces herself for a kick, swinging her left leg up. He catches her by the ankle one handed.

A smirk is the last thing she sees before she is flipped onto her back, blinking dazedly up at the bright lights shining down on the arena.

It's over quickly after that.

*

She can see the ‘I told you so' on Seven’s face, yet her hands are gentle where they run the dermal regenerator across B'Elanna's skin.

Lots of cuts and bruises, a broken rib and a sharp pain in her jaw. It could be worse.

Next time it  _ will _ be worse.

“You cannot fight again,” Seven insists.

B'Elanna silently agrees, but what choice does she have? Penk will make her fight or kill her if she does not. At least in the arena she has a chance. She can go out fighting.

She thinks of Tom and what he would tell her to do. Keep fighting? She doesn't think so. He would do the cheesy, noble thing and take her place. Get his skull crushed in the arena. She closes her eyes.

When she opens them again, some time has passed. Seven stands over her like a bodyguard to a dying king. It takes B’Elanna a few moments to realise why.

Before them stands Penk and his entourage.

“It’s time for the next fight,” Penk is saying. “Get up, Klingon.”

And to B’Elanna’s complete surprise, Seven takes a step to shield Penk from her.

“She will not.”

B’Elanna knows that tone. It is a tone you would be futile to resist. But Penk doesn’t know Seven, maybe he doesn’t really know the Borg, because he is not backing down.

“A fight will take place,” he says. “It has been a long time since the arena witnessed a kill.”

“No.”

Never one to back down from a fight, B’Elanna tries to sit up. But she underestimates just how weak her body currently is and it is easy for Seven to push her back down onto the bunk with a hand covered in Borg tech.

There’s movement from Penk’s flanks; at his word they are ready to move Seven by force.

And dammit if those shock poles don’t hurt. Two would surely be enough to take down a former drone.

Too many years on  _ Voyager _ have made B’Elanna soft though. She doesn’t particularly like Seven, but she’s not about to let the only ally she has here endure pain because of her.

“I can fight,” B’Elanna tries to say. It comes out nothing more than a ragged croak that tickles her throat.

No one is paying any attention to her anyway. Penk is slowly realising that Seven, although she has been the more restrained of the two of them this whole time, might just in fact be the more dangerous. It makes B’Elanna wonder just what Penk is seeing. How much of the Borg drone has taken over Seven’s face, leaving nothing of the human behind?

“I will fight in her place.”

Penk is silent, considering. His eyes roam over B’Elanna’s sorry state for a body before finally settling back on Seven, decision made. “Very well.”

After all, how much entertainment are they going to get from a half Klingon who can barely stand, let alone fight?

*

There is screens in the cells so all the prisoners can watch the fights. Most look on in horror - the newer ones - knowing it will be their turn soon. Others, the ones who train harder and longer than anyone else, study each fight, the fighters themselves, searching for weaknesses. An advantage in the arena can be the difference between life and death.

Seven’s weakness is that she refuses to fight. She’s been on  _ Voyager _ too long, sucked up too much humanity. She will not do harm if it can be avoided. B’Elanna thinks the captain, at least, would be proud.

B’Elanna also thinks Seven is an idiot and it would serve her right to lose.

In a cold, bitter moment, as she watches Seven take punch after punch, she sees how close death lingers in the arena. It waits for the fallen, biding its time. And it’s time is coming.

_ Better her than me, _ B’Elanna thinks.

Seven loses.

She is bruised and battered but lives to fight another day. And fight she will.

The crowds, whoever and wherever they are, love to see the Borg lose. And Penk is greedy. Just think how they will react to watching a Borg die.

A fight to the death.

But it cannot be easy. Seven is given time to heal. Time to train.

Time to wait.

*

B’Elanna trains too and fights again and again. Her second match is a bitter defeat, but her third… Her opponent has an old knee injury that becomes noticeable the longer the fight lasts. B’Elanna paces herself, waiting for the right moment.

The moment comes.

She uses the full force of her Klingon ancestry and lets out a primal howl of victory when she hears the bone snap beneath her.

Blood lust thrums in her veins and B’Elanna Torres knows what it means to feel alive.

“Your first victory,” says Seven, back in the cells.

_ Disapproval? _ B’Elanna wonders. But as she rinses her bloody knuckles, Seven takes her hands to work the dermal regenerator over them and it is relief B’Elanna sees in eyes that have become more human than Borg.

They train together after that. Seven has incredible strength, but she lacks the finesse of experience. There is knowledge in her head of thousands of assimilated species and their methods of combat. But her muscles have not moved this way before and Seven’s movements are imperfect.

Imperfection, to a Borg, is intolerable.

With each day, Seven's skill grows and B'Elanna becomes stronger. They spar until their muscles grow tired, clothes soaked in sweat. Up close and personal with a Borg. She should hate every moment of it. But she doesn't.

She thinks she might enjoy it.

The challenge of it. Besting a Borg. And Seven never makes it easy on her. She is always bruised and sore afterwards but high with exhilaration.

They train and train. And, always, Penk watches.

There are guards everywhere. Just in case the fighters get it into their heads that they might be free. Each one of them is a prisoner. But with the training and Seven, B'Elanna forgets. Until the day one of the new recruits surprises one of the guards in a manic bid for escape.

B'Elanna has witnessed death before. Had cause to unleash it by her own hand once or twice. But there is no honour in the brutality of this meaningless kill. Her human side - her weaker side, some might say - wants to turn her gaze away from the blood and the pain and the screams, while the Klingon in her makes her watch every agonising second. Even the end, when the body is dragged away.

A lesson, her Klingon ancestors warn her. And for once, B'Elanna listens.

That night, in the fragile privacy of dark, she climbs out of her bunk as silently as possible and slides into the one underneath beside Seven.

“Lieutenant?”

She's unsurprised to find Seven awake and even in the dark she can see the confusion that wrinkles Seven's otherwise perfect features.

“Seven,” B'Elanna murmurs, too loud. Too loud. There's always a guard in the room, cameras everywhere. She leans in closer, head right next to Seven's on the thin and useless pillow. So close their lips touch and Seven has to feel her words instead of listen. “We're going to die here.”

But this Seven already knows. Even if she wins her much anticipated fight to the death, only more will come. Always more.

“We have to get out,” B'Elanna breathes against Seven's lips. They are soft and warm and for the first time since the attack in the shuttle, B'Elanna doesn't feel so alone.

“What do you suggest?”

In the dark, in broken murmured whispers, B'Elanna lays out her plan.

The guards ignore them. They are not the first fighters to find solace and comfort in another's arms. Penk probably thinks it makes them fight better.

And, for a little while, it is just the two of them, the horrors of this place banished until the daylight can reveal them once again.

Easily, blissfully, B’Elanna slips into sleep, body pressed up against Seven’s. There is no hard, cold Borg, only the warmth of home.

The sudden brightness of morning when all the lights are turned on, wakes B’Elanna.

Another day of fighting. Another day outwith their control.

But they have a plan now and, with it, comes hope.

B’Elanna awakes to Seven’s arm slung loosely across her hip, Seven’s eyes staring into hers, fresh from sleep. Silent agreement, understanding.

Today they will fight, but it will not be against each other.

*

Like the fighters, the guards become caught in the primal call of the fight.

There’s a Hirogen fighter, part of the  Tsunkatse for years. He knows all its tricks, all its secrets. He is a hunter and lost children are his prey. A few goading words and B’Elanna has enticed him into sparring with her. Mere training, of course, but B’Elanna makes it look good and soon all the guards are watching, entranced and how easy it is for Seven to slip by them unnoticed, duck out of sight of the ever watchful cameras.

There are blind spots within their cell, and with the guards occupied Seven is free for the first time in months. A fragile freedom that cannot last, not unless they out think Penk and the whole Tsunkatse.

B’Elanna ducks to avoid a menacing Hirogen fist. She’s small - an advantage most here do not have - and for several triumphant moments, B’Elanna leads the Hirogen on a merry dance. For once the prey is the one playing.

By now, Seven will have pried apart the panelling on the wall to reveal an array of conduits and systems. The technology will be unfamiliar, but if anyone can adapt to it, make it her own, it is Seven of Nine.

A swift kick to the chest sends B’Elanna reeling. The guards cheer like they have never seen anything like it outside of the arena. And they probably haven't.

Seven will be looking for a communications circuit. With no equipment, they will have to rely on her Borg nanoprobes to hack the system. In hushed whispers in the dark of night, Seven had confirmed the likelihood of it working.

A good chance. Their only chance.

All they need is one message. Blared out across the sector. A cry for help, wrapped up in meaningless garble that will go unnoticed by most.

But not by  _ Voyager. _

They hope.

It has been weeks, months, and there is no guarantee  _ Voyager _ hasn’t moved on without them.

Any sensible captain would have given them up for dead by now. But not Captain Janeway.

If they are wrong, if  _ Voyager _ is gone…

There will be no good day to die and yet death will still come.

*

That night, once again in Seven’s bunk and surrounded by darkness, they cling together.

The message got out, Seven informs her. Her breath is hot where it lingers against B’Elanna’s skin.

“Not long now,” B’Elanna promises and wonders if she is fooling herself, fooling them both.

With no more words to say, she keeps her lips against Seven’s in silent comfort. The fight is scheduled for tomorrow and B’Elanna does not need Seven to voice it out loud for her to understand. She is afraid. Not of dying, but of losing herself in the arena. Rage and adrenaline will take over and Seven will be powerless to stop it. B’Elanna has seen some of it already during all their long hours of practice. She always knows how to push and when, she has seen the point of no return but has always managed to keep Seven on the edge of it.

But in the arena… Seven will have no choice.

“Don’t die on me, okay?” B’Elanna makes her promise.  _ Don’t leave me here alone. _

Never, not even with Tom, has she ever been this open, this raw. The darkness of the cell, the steady breathing of the other prisoners, all in fitful states of sleep, the bored coughing of the guards… none of it can hide her entirely. She is exposed. She is pain and fear and in Seven’s eyes she can see it too.

Seven of Nine is afraid.

B’Elanna wraps her arms around Seven in a protective embrace, pulls her close. For tonight, B’Elanna will keep her safe. Tomorrow… tomorrow is out of her hands.

*

Penk knows.

B’Elanna sees it the moment he steps through the door. He knows about their message. Anger flares in his eyes as they narrow onto B’Elanna and Seven.

“Do you take us for fools?”

There is a flippant quip in the tip of B’Elanna’s tongue, though she dares not say it out loud. Penk will be too quick to punish and his usual bodyguards with their shock poles look like they haven’t had much fun in a while.

The pain she wouldn’t mind so much, but if they go too far, decide to make an example out of her… Seven’s match is only a few hours away and B’Elanna can’t miss it. Even though it will make no difference, that Seven wouldn’t know either way, B’Elanna needs to watch the match with the other fighters. She will not let Seven do this alone.

“We found your ship,” says Penk. B’Elanna stiffens. She should feel relief - this means  _ Voyager _ hasn’t given up on them after all - but Penk is too smug. A smirk quirks his face, making the left strand of wiry mustache twitch where it dangles over his mouth. “They will not be coming for you.”

She wants to wipe the smirk from his face. Her hands clench into fists by her sides and she takes a determined step forwards. Within reach of Penk, of the shock poles and fuck the pain because…  _ Voyager, _ dammit. Their crew, their home. Whatever Penk has done, he will pay. In blood and pain. His, hers - she doesn’t care.

And then a hand clasps one of her fists. It’s warm and firm and quickly eases the clench of B’Elanna’s muscles. Seven squeezes her hand in silent warning. A warning to  _ think _ , not let the anger and pain and fear rule her.

“I think there will be a change to tonight’s lineup,” says Penk. His eyes gleam in the artificial light of the cell, but B’Elanna doesn’t grasp his meaning, not yet. Maybe Seven does, for her hand does not let go of B’Elanna’s - like she is the last life line keeping her afloat in the abyss of dark sea.

“A Borg and a Klingon…” Penk grins. “In a fight to the death. How spectacular.”

“No.” This from Seven and all the emotions raging within B’Elanna have somehow manifested in Seven’s cold, hard voice. “We refuse.”

“Yeah,” adds B’Elanna. “Sucks for you and your audience if the fighters just stand there and do nothing.”

Penk’s eyes narrow into slits, like the light of the place has suddenly become too bright for him. “Ah, but you  _ will _ fight.”

But B’Elanna is smirking now.  _ We’ve won, _ she thinks.  _ He has no power over us. He’s taken our hope and now there is nothing left. _

Except… except Penk does not have the air of a man who has just been defeated. Instead, he tosses them a PADD, which Seven catches deftly with her free hand.

“You  _ will _ fight.” And he is so sure of himself. So sure.

And why not? It’s all there on the PADD. His last bit of leverage.

_ Voyager. _

At his mercy. And now theirs.

*

She hates the brightness of the arena spotlights as they shine down upon her. Hates the silence. It makes her wish she could see them - all those cheering crowds reveling in the fights, shouting for blood, for death. She wants to look them in the eyes. Make them see that she is more than just an object for their entertainment. She is a person. She feels and loves and hurts and hell, sometimes she even cries.

But it is all sport to the faceless crowds. And to Penk, who sits up in his box. B’Elanna glares up at him and he waves the PADD at her. A reminder of what there is to lose if they do not fight.

Chakotay, Harry, the captain... all the others. And Tom.

She tries not to think about him anymore. It hurts too much, this thing that was but now is lost.

In the arena, she faces Seven. For weeks they have trained together, but never once in that whole time did she think it would be Seven she would have to fight for real. In all of Seven’s time aboard  _ Voyager, _ B’Elanna has never considered her a friend. Maybe they still aren’t. They are  _ something, _ at least, she thinks. On those timeless nights when the loneliness of their bunks became too much, they sought comfort in the other. Even if it was just a shared look, whispered words of rebellion, a hand to heal the wounds of their battles.

But after today, after this fight, only one will remain standing. There will be no comfort after this.

B’Elanna does not want to die, but can she kill Seven? Think of her as an enemy, as a Borg drone, as if that will make the spray of blood flow easier?

Part of her could.

The Klingon sees the honour in the kill. While the human is desperate, clawing for another way, for another chance.

_ I don’t want to do this, _ B’Elanna thinks as her gaze meets Seven’s.

_ You must. We must, _ Seven’s eyes seem to say, to plead.

This B’Elanna knows, but it doesn’t make her step into the arena any easier. She feels Penk watching and all the fighters back in the cells, feels the eyes of countless chanting watchers in mirrored arenas across the this sector of the galaxy. They scream for blood. Her blood and Seven’s. _Let’s make it a good one._

_ We must. For Voyager. _

They fight.

*

Seven’s punches are like a phaser blast set to the max and even then, B’Elanna knows she is holding back. Not enough for Penk or anyone else to notice, but B’Elanna, after all those training sessions, knows exactly what Seven is capable of.

She should already be dead.

That she isn’t doesn’t fill her with confidence or hope. Only anger.

It is an anger she had known her whole life. An anger that has kept her alive all these years. But it is also an anger that has cost her so many things. Her place at the Academy. Her mother.

And the cost, this time, is far too high. Her anger cannot be allowed to take hold.

B’Elanna easily dodges a kick, makes a half hearted attempt to hit back. Around them, Penk’s voice sounds across the arena. “Remember, ladies,” he admonishes. “Remember what is at stake.”

_ Voyager. _

B’Elanna risks a glance up at the box. Penk does not look pleased. She can’t see them, but she can imagine the bored, listless crowds, booing with disgruntlement. They were promised a brutal fight to the death, not this child’s game of cat and mouse. They want more. Always want more.

But B’Elanna cannot give it to them and neither can Seven.

Their eyes lock.  _ Don’t you dare leave me here alone, _ B’Elanna pleads. There is no hope left. This is their future now. Pain, the arena, death. It will come for them both, in the end. B’Elanna knows this, knows that whoever’s fate ends today, the other will not be far behind. But she can’t do it. She  _ can’t. _

What she is asking of Seven is too much, too much. A sacrifice. The loss of Seven’s humanity. B’Elanna hates herself for it but she is so tired of fighting. So tired of being.

_ Please, _ her eyes beg. And there it is, the slightest incline of Seven’s head. Reluctant, maybe even horrified, but resigned all the same.

No, B’Elanna and Seven have never been friends, but in a single moment, Seven grants her the greatest gift any friend could.

And as the punches rain down; one, then another and blood and pain and B’Elanna thinks, B’Elanna  _ knows,  _ no one ever before has understood her and loved her and grieved for her quite like Seven does in that one single moment.

Her back hits the floor, hard and loud with a crack of broken bones. Body ringing with pain like the blaring of a red alert siren. She could not win this fight now, not even if she tired. She never could. Her defeat, Seven’s victory, was always inevitable.

After all, how does one truly destroy the scourge that is the Borg? It cannot be done. Better people than her have tried. They are eternal and to fight that, to resist that, is futile.

On her back, B’Elanna blinks up at the too bright lights. Her head is too heavy to move and she feels her eyes sting with the invasion of light.

_ Today is a good day to die. _

She wants to scream.

_ There is honour in death,  _ cried a history of terrified warriors, tricking themselves into believing this was the way of Kahless, the only way.

The world dims and there is Seven standing over her. Looking down upon B’Elanna like a God. Except Seven is no God. Seven’s eyes are shining with the weight of what it means to be human. It is a weight that will break her in the end.

_ Please, _ B’Elanna silently begs and she is not thinking of Tom or her father or the Maquis long lost. She is not even thinking of herself. She is nothing now; her soul has fled her body in search of the barge to ferry her to Gre’thor, that place where all those without honour will someday end up. There is only pain left and it begs to be let go.

Seven raises her fists, high above her head. There is enough strength in her swing for a killing blow.

It has not been a quick death. It has not been painless.

And, at the end, there is nothing, no one.

*

She awakes in a familiar place, to familiar sounds and faces. Familiar in a distant, far away way.  _ Voyager. _

Her body is a blissful state of ignorance thanks to whatever drugs flow through her system, but there is no drug that can silence the anguish flooding her mind, her heart.

_ I’m alive, _ she thinks and should be happy, should be free.

But she is not those things. She is a prisoner to her own guilt, to her own failures.

Later, she is surrounded by loved ones, by family. Tom, the Doctor, Chakotay, Captain Janeway. They smile down at her, relieved she has survived.

Penk lied, they explain. They got Seven’s message. They came. They never gave up searching for them. 

B’Elanna should be relieved too, should be happy and warm. Instead she is cold and dread and her hand hangs limp where Tom holds it in his own. Her lips can’t even form a weak smile.

“Where is Seven?” she asks and is met with various looks; ranging from anger (this from Tom), disapproval (it marrs Chakotay’s face), anguish (from the captain, potent in a way that only a captain can feel for her crew) and, finally, worry that mirrors her own. This last from a hologram who should not even be able to feel worry. And yet he does.

“Seven is… regenerating,” he says and B’Elanna does not like the pause in his voice.

“‘S’not her fault,” B’Elanna mutters. She feels Tom squeeze her hand.  _ Too hard. _ He knows how close it came. One second later and it would have been a corpse they transported back to  _ Voyager. _ “It’s not.”

“Hush, Lieutenant. And get some rest. Please, all of you - I must insist you leave her be.”

Footsteps sound, then fade. The hand holding hers lingers - a comfort, a reassurance. Her hand may as well be empty, just like the rest of her. Tom’s lips brush against her forehead, words murmured against her skin that she is too far gone to understand.

She sleeps and wakes to darkness and panic, her heart racing until she remembers she is on a biobed in  _ Voyager’s _ sickbay. Not back in her bunk with Seven pretending to sleep in the bunk beneath her. Even that distance, on most nights, had become too great.

As silently as possible, B’Elanna climbs out of bed. The whole ship is silent in the artificial night. The Doctor, never requiring sleep, works silently in his office. So focused he is on the PADD in his hands that he does not notice her creeping towards the console, does not flinch as she silently commands the computer to shut his programme down. He disappears from existence in the blink of an eye, lost to the void of computer code and algorithms.

No one else occupies the sickbay and B’Elanna easily slips out, finding a quiet and empty deck. There is only one place she wants to go. A compulsion she could not break even if she tried.

*

“Would you have done it?” An unfair question, but it is the only words that propel from B’Elanna’s mouth.

Cargo bay two, although filled with equipment and Borg tech, is far more spacious than the cramped confines of her quarters. The few minutes she had spent stripping the arena garb from her body and pulling on a Starfleet issue jumpsuit had been stifling. She needs the open space of a vacuum, finding  _ Voyager’s _ hull too think, too much like another cage she cannot escape from.

Seven is awake, of course. Her eyes dark, cheeks pale - betraying the fact she has not rested. She works at something on the console but pauses at B’Elanna’s words.

“For you?” Her back is to B’Elanna, stiff and straight. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”  _ So sorry. _

“Why?” But B’Elanna isn’t sure what she is asking.

“I couldn’t be alone in that place. I couldn’t… I didn’t want to die alone.”

Seven nods and maybe she understands, maybe she doesn’t.

“Penk took everything.” Her hope, her will. Herself.

“Not everything,” says Seven. She turns, her hand reaching for B’Elanna’s. “You always had me.”

_ But I nearly destroyed you, _ B’Elanna thinks and Seven seems to hear, to understand this at least. Her hands draw comfort across B’Elanna’s skin, just like they had always done after the arena.

“Everything is different now.”

“Yes,” Seven agrees. Her eyes look away, cloudy and filled with remorse. The eyes of humanity.

“You’re a better person than me,” B’Elanna murmurs. “Always remember that.”

And when Seven nods, her gaze returning to meet B’Elanna’s, there is finally hope staring back at her. Hope that was lost, but now is found. In each other, if not in themselves.

_ To err is human, _ she thinks. There is no guide, no easy fix. Only forgiveness.

And she forgives Seven, just as Seven forgives her.

As the vastness of space swallows up the starship  _ Voyager, _ two broken, imperfect humans - one part Borg, the other part Klingon - grip tightly to one another and find peace.


End file.
